Digital transformation increasingly requires activities located outside firm boundaries, for example via alliances with start-up companies. Despite this, German Mittelstand firms, primarily owned and managed by enterprising families and seen as role models of innovation, appear reluctant to...

The need to economically identify rare subjects within large, poorly mapped search spaces is a frequently encountered problem for social scientists and managers. It is notoriously difficult, for example, to identify “the best new CEO for our company,” or the “best three lead users to...